Alec Forbes of Howglen

CHAPTER LXXI

"I say, Forbes, you keep yourself all to yourself and old Cupples, away there in the new town. Come and take some supper with me to-night. It's my birthday, old boy."

"I don't do much in that way, you know, Gibby."

"Oh yes, I know. You're never jolly but amongst the shell-fish. At least that's what the Venall thinks of you. But for once in a way you might come."

"Well, I don't mind," said Alec, really not caring what came to him or of him, and glad of anything to occupy him with no-thinking. "When shall I come?"

"At seven. We'll have a night of it. To-morrow's Saturday."

It was hardly worth while to go home. He would not dine to-day. He would go and renew his grief by the ever-grieving sea. For his was a young love, and his sorrow was interesting to him: he embalmed his pangs in the amber of his consciousness. So he crossed the links to the desolate sandy shore; there let the sound of the waves enter the portals of his brain and fill all its hollow caves with their moaning; and then wandering back to the old city, stood at length over the keystone of the bridge, and looked down into the dark water below the Gothic arch.

He heard a footstep behind him on the bridge. Looking round he saw Beauchamp. Without reason or object, he walked up to him and barred his way. Beauchamp started, and drew back.

"Beauchamp," said Alec, "you are my devil."

"Granted," said Beauchamp, coolly, but on his guard.

"What are you about with my cousin?"

"What is that to you?"

"She is my cousin."

"I don't care. She's not mine."

"If you play her false, as you have played me—by heavens!—"

"Oh! I'll be very kind to her. You needn't be afraid. I only wanted to take down your damned impudence. You may go to her when you like."

Alec's answer was a blow, which Beauchamp was prepared for and avoided. Alec pursued the attack with a burning desire to give him the punishment he deserved. But he turned suddenly sick, and, although he afterwards recalled a wrestle, knee to knee, the first thing he was aware of was the cold waters of the river closing over him. The shock restored him. When he rose to the surface he swam down the stream, for the banks were precipitous in the neighbourhood of the bridge. At length he succeeded in landing, and set out for home. He had not gone far, however, before he grew very faint, and had to sit down on a door-step. Then he discovered that his arm was bleeding, and knew that Beauchamp had stabbed him. He contrived to tie it up after a fashion, and reached home without much more difficulty. Mr Cupples had not come in. So he got his landlady to tie up his arm for him, and then changed his clothes. Fortunately the wound, although long and deep, ran lengthways between the shoulder and elbow, on the outside of the arm, and so was not of a serious character. After he was dressed, feeling quite well, he set off to keep his engagement with Gilbert Gordon.

Now how could such a thing have taken place in the third decade of the nineteenth century?—The parapet was low and the struggle was fierce. I do not think that Beauchamp intended murder, for the consequences of murder must be a serious consideration to every gentleman. He came of a wild race, with whom a word and a steel blow had been linked for ages. And habits transmitted become instincts. He was of a cold temperament, and such a nature, once roused, is often less under control than one used to excitement: a saint will sometimes break through the bonds of the very virtue which has gained him all his repute. If we combine these considerations with the known hatred of Beauchamp, the story Alec told Cupples the next day may become in itself credible. Whether Beauchamp tried to throw him from the bridge may remain doubtful, for when the bodies of two men are locked in the wrestle of hate, their own souls do not know what they intend. Beauchamp must have sped home with the conscience of a murderer; and yet when Alec made his appearance in the class, most probably a revival of hatred was his first mental experience. But I have had no opportunity of studying the morbid anatomy of Beauchamp, and I do not care about him, save as he influences the current of this history. When he vanishes, I shall be glad to forget him.

Soon after Alec had left the house, Cupples came home with a hurried inquiry whether the landlady had seen anything of him. She told him as much as she knew, whereupon he went up-stairs to his schylus, &c.

Alec said nothing about his adventure to any of his friends, for, like other Scotchmen young and old, he liked to keep things in his own hands till he knew what to do with them. At first, notwithstanding his loss of blood, he felt better than he had felt for some time; but in the course of the evening he grew so tired, and his brain grew so muddy and brown, that he was glad when he heard the order given for the boiling water. He had before now, although Mr Cupples had never become aware of the fact, partaken of the usual source of Scotch exhilaration, and had felt nothing the worse; and now heedless of Mr Cupples's elaborate warning—how could he be expected to mind it?—he mixed himself a tumbler eagerly. But although the earth brightened up under its influences, and a wider horizon opened about him than he had enjoyed for months before, yet half-frightened at the power of the beverage over his weakened frame, he had conscience enough to refuse a second tumbler, and rose early and went home.

The moment he entered the garret, Mr Cupples, who had already consumed his nightly portion, saw that he had been drinking. He looked at him with blue eyes, wide-opened, dismay and toddy combining to render them of uncertain vision.

"Eh, bantam! bantam!" he said, and sank back in his chair; "ye hae been at it in spite o' me."

And Mr Cupples burst into silent tears—no unusual phenomenon in men under the combined influences of emotion and drink. Notwithstanding his own elevated condition, Alec was shocked.

"Mr Cupples," he said, "I want to tell you all about it."

Mr Cupples took no notice. Alec began his story notwithstanding, and as he went on, his friend became attentive, inserting here and there an expletive to the disadvantage of Beauchamp, whose behaviour with regard to Kate he now learned for the first time. When Alec had finished, Cupples said solemnly:

"I warned ye against him, Alec. But a waur enemy nor Beauchamp has gotten a sickerer haud o' ye, I doobt. Do 'at he like, Beauchamp's dirk couldna hurt ye sae muckle as yer ain han', whan ye liftit the first glass to yer ain mou' the nicht. Ye hae despised a' my warnings. And sorrow and shame'll come o' 't. And I'll hae to beir a' the wyte o' 't. Yer mither'll jist hate me like the verra black taed that no woman can bide. Gang awa' to yer bed. I canna bide the sicht o' ye."

Alec went to bed, rebuked and distressed. But not having taken enough to hurt him much, he was unfortunately able, the next morning, to regard Mr Cupples's lecture from a ludicrous point of view. And what danger was he in more than the rest of the fellows, few of whom would refuse a tumbler of toddy, and fewer of whom were likely to get drunk?—Had not Alec been unhappy, he would have been in less danger than most of them; but he was unhappy.

And although the whisky had done him no great immediate injury, yet its reaction, combined with the loss of blood, made him restless all that day. So that, when the afternoon came, instead of going to Mr Cupples in the library, he joined some of the same set he had been with the evening before. And when he came home, instead of going up-stairs to Mr Cupples, he went straight to bed.

The next morning, while he was at breakfast, Mr Cupples made his appearance in his room.

"What cam' o' ye last nicht, bantam?" he asked kindly, but with evident uneasiness.

"I cam' hame some tired, and gaed straucht to my bed."

"But ye warna hame verra ear'."

"I wasna that late."

"Ye hae been drinkin' again. I ken by the luik o' yer een."

Alec had a very even temper. But a headache and a sore conscience together were enough to upset it. To be out of temper with oneself is to be out of temper with the universe.

"Did my mother commission you to look after me, Mr Cupples?" he asked, and could have dashed his head against the wall the next moment. But the look of pitying and yet deprecating concern in Mr Cupples's face fixed him so that he could say nothing.

Mr Cupples turned and walked slowly away, with only the words:

"Eh! bantam! bantam! The Lord hae pity upo' ye -and me too!"

He went out at the door bowed like an old man.

"Preserve's, Mr Cupples! What ails ye?" exclaimed his landlady meeting him in the passage.

"The whusky's disagreed wi' me," he said. "It's verra ill-faured o' 't.

I'm sure I pay't ilka proper attention."

Then he went down the stairs, murmuring—

"Rainbows! Rainbows! Naething for me but rainbows! God help the laddie!"

CHAPTER LXXII

It may appear strange to some of my renders that Alec should fall into this pit immediately upon the solemn warning of his friend. He had listened to the story alone; he had never felt the warning: he had never felt the danger. Had he not himself in his own hands? He was not fond of whisky. He could take it or leave it. And so he took it; and finding that there was some comfort in it, took it again and again, seeking the society in which it was the vivifying element.—Need I depict the fine gradations by which he sank—gradations though fine yet so numerous that, in a space of time almost too brief for credit, the bleared eye, the soiled garments, and the disordered hair, would reveal how the night had been spent, and the clear-browed boy looked a sullen, troubled, dissatisfied youth? The vice had laid hold of him like a fast-wreathing, many-folded serpent. He had never had any conscious religion. His life had never looked up to its source. All that was good in him was good of itself, not of him. So it was easy to go down, with grief staring at him over the edge of the pit. All return to the unific rectitude of a manly life must be in the face of a scorching past and a dank future—and those he could not face.

And as his life thus ebbed away from him, his feelings towards Beauchamp grew more and more bitter, approximating in character to those of Beauchamp towards him. And he soon became resolved to have his revenge on him, though it was long before he could make up his mind as to what the revenge should be.

Beauchamp avoided him constantly.

And Mr Cupples was haunting him unseen. The strong-minded, wise-headed, weak-willed little poet, wrapped in a coat of darkness, dogged the footsteps of a great handsome, good-natured, ordinary-gifted wretch, who could never make him any return but affection, and had now withdrawn all interchange of common friendship in order that he might go the downward road unchecked. Cupples was driven almost distracted. He drank harder than ever, but with less satisfaction than ever, for he only grew the more miserable. He thought of writing to Alec's mother, but, with the indecision of a drunkard, he could not make up his mind, and pondered over every side of the question, till he was lost in a maze of incapacity.

Bad went to worse. Vice grew upon vice.

There are facts in human life which human artists cannot touch. The great Artist can weave them into the grand whole of his Picture, but to the human eye they look too ugly and too painful. Even the man who can do the deeds dares not represent them. Mothers have to know such facts of their sons, and such facts of women like themselves.

Alec had fallen amongst a set of men who would not be satisfied till he should be as low as they—till there should be nothing left in him to remind them that they had once been better. The circle in which he began to drink had gradually contracted about him. The better sort had fallen away, and the worse had remained—chiefly older men than he, men who had come near to the enjoyment of vileness for its own sake, if that be possible, and who certainly enjoyed making others like themselves. Encouraged by their laughter and approbation, Alec began to emulate them, and would soon have had very little to learn if things had not taken a turn. A great hand is sometimes laid even on the fly-wheel of life's engine.

CHAPTER LXXIII

Andrew Constable, with his wife and old-fashioned child Isie, was seated at tea in the little parlour opening from the shop, when he was called out by a customer. He remained longer than was likely to be accounted for by the transaction of business at that time of the day. And when he returned his honest face looked troubled.

"Wha was that?" asked his wife.

"Ow! it was naebody but Jeames Johnston, wantin' a bit o' flannin for's wife's coatie."

"And what had he to say 'at keepit ye till yer tay's no fit to drink?"

"Ow! my tay'll do weel eneuch. It's nae by ordinar' cauld."

"But what said he?"

"Weel! hm! hm!—He said it was fine frosty weather."

"Ay, nae doobt! He kent that by the way the shuttle flew. Was that a'?"

"Na, nae freely. But cogues hae lugs, and bairns hae muckle een."

For Isie sat on her stool staring at her father and mother alternately, and watching for the result of her mother's attempt at picking the lock of her father's reticence. But the moment she heard the word lugs, she knew that she had no chance, and her eyes grew less and their pupils grew larger. Fearing he had hurt her, Andrew said,

"Winna ye hae a starnie jam, Isie? It's grosert-jam."

"Na, thank ye, daddie. Maybe it wad gie me a sair wame," answered the solemn old-faced Scotchwoman of seven.

A child who refuses jam lest it should serve her as the little book did the Apostle John, might be considered prudent enough to be intrusted with a secret. But not a word more was said on the subject, till Isie was in bed, and supposed to be fast asleep, in a little room that opened off the parlour. But she was not asleep. And the door was always left open, that she might fall asleep in the presence of her parents. Their words therefore flowed freely into her ears, although the meaning only played on her mind with a dull glimmer like that which played on her wall from the fire in the room where they sat talking.

"Ay, woman," began Andrew, "it'll be sair news, this, to the lady ower the watter."

"Ye dinna mean Mistress Forbes, Anerew?"

"'Deed I mean jist her."

"Is't her son? Has he met wi' ony mischeef? What's happent till him? Is he droont, or killt? The Lord preserve's! She'll dee o' 't."

"Na, lass. It's a hantle waur nor a' that."

The woodcuts in Fox's Book of Martyrs, of which three folio volumes in black letter lay in the room whence the conversation flowed to Isie's ears, rose in all their hideousuess before the mental vision of the child. In no other way than as torture could she conceive of worse than being killed.

"Ye gar me grue," said Mrs Constable, with a shudder.